How to find +level gear

I like to play PoE2 like Ironman in osrs where I don’t buy any items from other players and I just use basic crafting techniques. It gets me to late game mapping easily enough with the +5 staff essence and just slamming and crossing my fingers until I get lucky on my other gear. But, I cannot for the life of me find +6 spell staves or a +3 spells amulet, despite picking up and upgrading every tier 1-3 staff and every single amulet. Is there a better way I should have my loot filter or some sort of trick I’m missing? What items should I filter out maybe I’m wasting my time by picking up and upgrading too much.